


And Yet

by slire



Series: The Shadow Biosphere [5]
Category: Mushishi
Genre: Gen, Psychological, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-23
Updated: 2015-07-23
Packaged: 2018-04-07 01:10:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4243779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slire/pseuds/slire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>mildly inspired by Édouard Levé's <em>Suicide</em>. experimental piece</p>
    </blockquote>





	And Yet

**Author's Note:**

> mildly inspired by Édouard Levé's _Suicide_. experimental piece

This is the knowledge that is his foundation: his name is Ginko and he is a wandering mushishi whose focus is ultimate harmony. He is an observer and a commentor. He attempts to remain objective during his travels and act as a catalyst—everyone has the truth inside them—rather than to put words into people's mouth. "Everything is only as it is," he repeats it like a mantra. 

(And yet.)

Sometimes he's reminded that he is only a sack of skin and bones and meat. Immortal. Thinking. **Fearing**. Like the time with the mother who thought mushi was her children stabbed him. His position as an observer jarred. His other-wordly façade poked a hole in, which bleeds dirt like the rest of them.

And yet. 

He cannot allow himself to doubt. If he doubts, he'll die. It's the same fate that awaits him if he stays for too long or doesn't have enough anti-mushi tobacco. 

**And yet.**

 

He speaks to strangers for hours. Afterward he walks the roads in search of other inns, but they are closed. He stretches out in the grass and on park benches, and he remarks on the shape of the clouds, sleeping in the wilderness without cover and enjoying the allure of summer. When, the next day, the strangers repeat to him the words he spoke to them at the inn, he remembered nothing of them. It was as though someone else inside him had spoken. He recognizes neither his words, nor his thoughts, but he likes them better than he would have if he'd remembered saying them. Often all it took was for others to like him was hearing him speak their own words back at them.

He is the mirror that reflects back at them and helps them see.

And yet.

 

"But you have friends." 

Tanyuu. Adashino. Other mushishi he's traveled with, even if he can't stay longer. Villagers he's helped. Yet he can never stay with them for anything other than a brief moment of time, because they gather at his feet, the creatures, the organisms, mindless and only dangerous when brought into human contact.  Mushi share more with illness than bugs. And his illness is chained to his feet, forever dragged behind him. Chalk his hands down please he wants to work the chains dry. 

"You are not alone."

Oh, but oh, it feels like he is, staring up at a star spragled sky and wondering where his life went, envying the quiet small town life and the aspect of family. He is a mess of conflicting desires and he wishes he wasn't human. 

"You are in nature, and nature is in you."  

Nature isn't necessarily a positive force, but Ginko has never claimed to preach it. It is neither good nor bad. It is not out to get him. It is not. 

 

Maintain the balance.

Uphold the established ordered. Yin and Yan.

Remember: there are no "good" or "evil" here. 

 

Ginko has become myth: the green-eyed, white-haired, odd-looking (and odd-behaving) mushishi. 

Myths come and go, and in time, he will fade. His philosophy, also. Alas, the balance of life and "everything is only as it is" are his philosophy. So he should not doubt. Should not. And here the issue presents itself again: the existence of _and yet_ , the idea of something else, the ideas themselves.

Sometimes he hates the humans a little because they cannot see.

 

(And sometimes he shoves his fingers into his eye socket at night looking for answers, finding none.) 

 

**Inhale.**

**Exhale.**

 

Everything is only as it is. 

Everything is only as it is.

Everything is only as it is.

 

And yet. 


End file.
